Paul constantly admonished his hearers to enter into a larger sense of liberty. Clearly recognizing the bondage of the flesh—that is, the fleshly or false beliefs—as, apparently, mankind's most potent enemy and stumblingblock, he urged them, with all his great powers of persuasion, to break the fetters which they had accepted as inevitable, and to stand fast in the full liberty of the sons of God. Hence, he wrote in his epistle to the Galatians: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."
This exhortation is profitable for analysis. Paul was sure that true liberty is that which comes through the Christ,—that is, through knowing the truth about God, man, and creation; and he had no hesitation in calling upon his fellow-Christians who had gained that understanding to "stand fast." None knew better than he the difficulties of standing fast, of holding to the spiritual truth, when, perhaps, all the testimony of material sense and the common opinion of mankind were arrayed in direct opposition. Yet to this great exponent of the true Christian ministry there came no period of doubt, no temptation to surrender. Few have been more beset than he by error's claims. Few have withstood so valiantly the continuous assaults of the seeming foe, mustering its most powerful weapons. Yet the apostle to the Gentiles stood in that liberty which comes only through the illumination of consciousness by the Christ, Truth, "the light that never was, on sea or land."
Mrs. Eddy, like Paul, saw that true emancipation is mental; and that the seeming material shackles fall as false restricting belief is destroyed through the influence of the Christ. On page 224 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," under the marginal heading "Mental emancipation," Mrs. Eddy writes: "Truth brings the elements of liberty. On its banner is the Soulinspired motto, 'Slavery is abolished.' The power of God brings deliverance to the captive." And she adds this cogent sentence: "No power can withstand divine Love." Is it not perfectly palpable that Mrs. Eddy and Paul were seeing, to an extraordinary degree, exactly the same Truth, and, moreover, that they arrived at their conclusions through similar revelations of the truth, of which Christ Jesus declared in language so simple that all may understand, it "shall make you free"? That is, through gaining an understanding of Truth, the facts about God and His perfect creature, man, the seeming bondage in which mankind believes itself to be held fast will be broken.
